For at the bottom of it all the fight is between Slav and Teuton. It is a grim and unrelenting struggle for existence that is shaping itself into one of the world’s fiercest racial contests. The Slavic peoples are steadily pressing in from the east though not with the barbarity which characterized their earlier onslaughts. It is the turn of Russians, Poles, Bohemians, Slovenes, Serbians and Croats, slowly to crowd on the descendants of the blue-eyed flaxen-haired barbarians, representing Germanic peoples. This Slavonic westerly push has always been blocked by the leading power in the west. France opposed it in the Napoleonic period. Great Britain checked it in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Today it is Germany’s turn to stand the brunt of its pressure. As matters stand both Germany and Russia are vigorous, young and fast-growing. The two peoples have taken root on adjacent land like two sturdy oaks. They are now in the stage at which the soil’s nourishment at the border suffices only for one. The weaker must wither. The Teuton is expanding eastward, the Slav is spreading westward. Their main clashing-zone happens to be the Balkan peninsula. The ceaseless agitation in this area and its menace to the world’s peace is a consequence of the antagonism between the Pan-Slavic Colossus and the Pan-German Titan. Germany’s expansion is a natural phenomenon. The country is overpopulated. It must expand. The sea is a barrier to its westerly expansion. The north is uninviting. The south is being drained of its resources by active and intelligent inhabitants. The “Drang nach Osten” of German Imperialism is therefore inevitable. The line of least resistance points to the east, where fertile territory awaits development. Little wonder, then, that the attention of Germany’s far-seeing statesmen has been directed toward oriental countries, whose wealth of natural resources and genial climate combine to render them ideally attractive. The verdant vales and forest-clad mountains of Serbia, Greece and Bulgaria abound with raw material needed for Germany’s increasing industries. Beyond the narrow watercourse, intervening between Europe and Asia, at the Dardanelles and Bosporus lies Asia Minor, a land marvelously rich in minerals and susceptible of great agricultural development. Farther east the exceedingly fertile Mesopotamian valley, once the granary of the civilized world, stretches between the western Euphrates and Tigris, and bids fair to provide humanity anew with vast supplies of cereals.